Re: Blood Cancer Progression

[Guest guest]

Whew. Pretty darned important finding. Thanks, Lottie!

On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Lottie Duthu <lotajam@...> wrote:

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> Written by Preidt for Scout News

> U.S. researchers say they've spotted a mechanism by which chronic myeloid

> leukemia (CML) progresses into a deadlier stage. The finding may improve

> patient outcomes, they said.

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> " The researchers found that when a molecular off-switch called glycogen

> synthase kinase (GSK) 3 beta becomes faulty in chronic stage CML cells, it

> fails to turn off another protein called beta-catenin. This enables

> pre-leukemia stem cells to develop into leukemia stem cells and increase

> their numbers, leading to the more dangerous " blast crisis " state of CML.

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> " If we can predict when a patient is moving from the chronic phase in CML

> to the blast crisis stage, then we can hopefully intervene before it's too

> late, " study co-leader Dr. Catriona H.M. son, an assistant professor of

> medicine at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of

> Medicine and director for Stem Cell Research at the s UCSD Cancer

> Center, said in a university news release.

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> " Faulty GSK 3 beta also offers a potential treatment target, the

> researchers said. " This knowledge may enable us to design and develop more

> effective, personalized therapies for these patients, " co-first author and

> staff research associate Annelie Abrahamsson said in the news release. The

> study appears online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The

> findings may not be limited to CML, the team noted.

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> " Downregulating beta-catenin and GSK deregulation may have other

> implications in many cancers, " son said. " By studying CML, we can

> understand the molecular evolution of disease and the stepwise progression

> to cancer. It becomes a useful paradigm for understanding how cancers evolve

> and the pathways that are essential to escape the normal control

> mechanisms. " ScoutNews, LLC.

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> http://tinyurl.com/27r82ks

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> _________________________________

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> FYI

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> Lottie Duthu

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